Levy your myths on Greece | 67 comments (67 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Latest (unofficial and unpublished)... (4.00 / 4)

The mainstream media almost openly concede defeat and start behaving as an opposition to a still non-constituted Syriza government!

I am following thew news on the site you suggested, Athens News, where the hysterically anti-Syriza domestic media barrage is covered in the daily press reviews. But the site is odd because their news articles are quite acidic in pointing out the idiocy of establishment party and media representative claims, but then there is this editorial which accuses Tsipras of populism, political opportunism, tough talk instead of substance, and claims he is not aiming for an unspecified "real change".

The critical question is whether it will manage to survive the barrage of internal and external attacks it will suffer especially the first few months.

I hope they are preparing for it. Also, I hope they have some odea of what to do with a police of which apparently 50% voted for the Nazis (one difficulty for SPD governments in Weimar-era Germany was the disloyalty of police and gendarmerie, though that doesn't excuse their strategic mistakes as they had other means left unused).

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jun 7th, 2012 at 05:57:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Latest (unofficial and unpublished)... (4.00 / 7)

This morning, a pre-election panel in a morning show on Greek TV. You don't need to know Greek, but watch it to the end. Spot the Nazi and the representatives of the Left

After this the Nazi representatives have been "withdrawn" from TV debates. Don't know if this costs them or is exactly what their base wants of them. There is now a warrant for the Nazi's arrest, who was elected May 6th, and is currently on trial for robbery and grievous bodily harm....

The Athens News editorial is relatively soft on SYRIZA compared to the constant barrage of attacks they are receiving (and of course with Chryssi Avgi present they are pictured as the one end of the "two extremes" threatening the country).

BTW do you have any sources on the SPD / cops issue in Weimar Germany? It seems interesting at this juncture.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

by talos (mihalis at gmail dot com) on Thu Jun 7th, 2012 at 06:38:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Latest (unofficial and unpublished)... (4.00 / 8)

Athens News story on the studio scuffle, which also notes the inaction of the representatives of the other parties. What's IMHO much worse is the barely controlled Chryssi Avgi attacks on immigrants (for which they then deny responsibility).

The Athens News editorial may be soft compared to the MSM attacks, but it is in stark contrast to their superficially pro-SYRIZA ridiculing of the established parties and MSM headlines, so I really don't know what to think when they say "real change".

On the SPD-cops issue, I don't have a single source, but this connects to stuff discussed in the recent tussle over Thälmann. The SPD was in the federal government for some time, and ran the government of Prussia state for even more time. The SPD replaced the top leadership of the Prussian Police, but not the lower officers and common cops. Although the SPD leadership was complicit in the events of 1929 called Bloody May (their minister issued the ban and didn't pursue repercussions against police excesses), that was partly because they couldn't rely on police, and indeed Social Democrats were killed in the lethal police attacks, too. Later, in July 1932, there was the Bloody Sunday of Altona (now part of Hamburg), when it was again police called in by an SPD man ran amok. A few days later the SPD government of Prussia was toppled in a semi-coup (Preußenschlag), with some police cooperating with the coup and all the rest standing down, as the SPD choose to not call on them to defend the government (officially to avoid a civil war, and obviously because loyalty wasn't certain). Later Göring became Prussia's interior minister (and created the Gestapo out of a branch of the Prussian Police).

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jun 7th, 2012 at 08:19:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Latest (unofficial and unpublished)... (4.00 / 4)

What's IMHO much worse is the barely controlled Chryssi Avgi attacks on immigrants

And that continues, making headlines when bystanders are hit too:

Israeli journalist beaten by masked mob | Athens News

...Gil Shefler, a reporter with the Jerusalem Post who was in Greece on assignment, went to the area at around 8pm to take a photograph of the National Archaeological Museum.
On his way, he noticed dozens of migrants being chased on an adjacent road to Patision Ave by about twenty masked men bearing sticks and batons.
When the mob began beating the migrants, Shefler said he "instinctively I took out my camera."
"I snapped a photo and one guy came up and told me 'Listen, don't take a photo. They'll beat the hell out of you.
"Seconds later, I was being chased by five of these people. They caught me and beat me with sticks for around five minutes, I reckon."

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jun 7th, 2012 at 12:07:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Latest (unofficial and unpublished)... (4.00 / 2)

The pogroms continue, and the pretense about "illegal" immigrants is dropping:

Egyptian beaten in suspected racist attack | Athens News

A 28-year-old Egyptian man has been hospitalised with serious injuries after he was beaten in his own home in a suspected racist attack early on Tuesday morning.
The attack occurred between Keratsini and Perama, outside Piraeus. According to reports, shortly after 3pm twenty attackers on ten motorbikes arrived at the house, where four Egyptians lived.
All the Egyptians are employed as fishermen. According to journalist Niko Ago, the men are legally resident in Greece and came to work under a bilateral agreement with Egypt

Meanwhile, Chryssi Avgi is issuing ridiculous excuse aftewr ridiculous excuse for the studio attack: their man only reacted to the first act of violence by the communist MP, who hit him with papers (that was already in reaction to the glass of water thrown on the SYRIZA MP by the neo-Nazi thug...); this was a planned provocation and their man lost his cool (and surely taking a camera with him to snap photos of studio employees and threatening them was a result of losing cool, too...).

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Jun 13th, 2012 at 04:35:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Latest (unofficial and unpublished)... (4.00 / 2)

...but the "centre"-right is playing the Nazis' game:

News bites @ 10 | Athens News

1. SAMARAS SPEAKS TOUGH Delivering his party's new 12-point programme on immigration and crime, New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras on Tuesday said that: ""Greece has experienced an invasion of illegal immigrants" and "we shall stop it".

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Jun 13th, 2012 at 04:36:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Latest (unofficial and unpublished)... (none / 1)

There's a study on the rise of the NSDAP in rural Germany that affronts the issue of armed party militias and political rallies during the 20's. I'll have to find it. I think it was published in the 60's.

by de Gondi (publiobestia aaaatttthotmaildaughtusual) on Thu Jun 7th, 2012 at 08:38:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Latest (unofficial and unpublished)... (4.00 / 2)

Contrast with Germany, where the Pirates prefer beating one another with LAN cables.

Er selbst sei beispielsweise von einem Fraktionsmitglied der Berliner Piraten öffentlich beschimpft und auf einer Landesmitgliederversammlung "mit einem Lan-Kabel geschlagen" worden.

No video, I'm afraid....

by gk (g k quattro due due sette "at" gmail.com) on Thu Jun 7th, 2012 at 10:46:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Latest (unofficial and unpublished)... (none / 0)

They should have used a nine of cats tail. No sense for tradition, young people today.

by IM on Fri Jun 8th, 2012 at 02:51:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Latest (unofficial and unpublished)... (none / 0)

They sound Spanish...

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jun 7th, 2012 at 04:23:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Latest (unofficial and unpublished)... (4.00 / 2)

I hope they have some odea of what to do with a police of which apparently 50% voted for the Nazis

SYRIZA does think of the police, but this is in reaction to repression of past protests:

Tsipras vows to bridge distance between police and the public | Athens News

Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) leader Alexis Tsipras on Monday underlined that restoring a sense of security and safety by returning police to neighbourhood beats and "reconciling" the police with the public were two priority issues for his party, following his visit to the Attical General Police Headquarters in Athens.
"It is especially important that we ensure the conditions that will enable every citizen to walk about freely and without fear in every corner of the country, 24 hours a day," he emphasised.
According to Tsipras, the 'bailout governments' had directed resources, manpower and energy into two goals that had nothing to do with the true aim and mission of the Greek police - using the force instead to repress the people's reaction to the "memorandum policies of destruction" and as free security to guard "highly influential persons". Ensuring the safety of ordinary citizens meant returning the police to neighbourhoods, he added.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Tue Jun 12th, 2012 at 04:40:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Levy your myths on Greece | 67 comments (67 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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